If you are a freelance graphic designer, graphic artist or illustrator, here are a few simple and easy tips on how you can quickly improve your portfolio.
1) Market Research – Know your target audience
It is important to understand who will be viewing your graphic design portfolio. Whether you are preparing your portfolio for a big show at a gallery, entering a graphic design contest on the web, applying for a position as a graphic artist at a local graphic design studio, or trying to impress your parents so they finance your incredibly overpriced graphic design degree, it is important to know your target audience, and cater to them accordingly.
For instance, you wouldn’t show all your erotic artwork or some sentimental pieces about your childhood troubles to a serious, snooty, posh, academic-looking, top graphic arts program or art history program when applying to their graphic design school would you? It is important to realize that everyone’s creative and artistic juices flow in many different directions and that they are very personal. So, as objective as we would like the world to be and as great and original as we believe our own artwork may be, we have to remind ourselves to prepare our portfolios in such a way that they will be properly received by our audience.
Understanding who your portfolio is for, where it will be presented, how it will be evaluated, and ultimately why you are creating it, should always be the first step in its inception. ( graphic design portfolio tips continued…)